Tag Archives: sweet

March came so fast that I didn’t manage to update this blog with another traditonal Finnish recipe – the laskiaispulla. If you love to eat sweets buns and cake, February is your month! In the beginning of February Finland celebrates Runeberg’s Day. On that day the stores and bakeries are filled with Runeberg’s Cakes which are made with almond flour and decorated with raspberry jam in a sugar ring. Then on Shrove Tuesday (Laskiaistiistai) Finnish people eat sweet buns filled with whipped cream, raspberry jam and/or marzipan.

Laskianen is originally a pre-Christian Finnish tradition where children would go sledding down the hills (sledding events are still done nowadays, mostly by uni students with fancy selfmade sleighs) to predict the crop growth of the coming summer and was later merged with pre-Easter customs. Like with every celebration, certain food traditions are also part of it and that’s why there has been so much old-fashioned baking at our house lately. If you ask me you don’t have to wait for a holiday (or the next February) to enjoy a freshly made laskiaispulla!

For the basic sweet buns I used this Finnish recipe and converted the amounts into grams because in Finland most baking is done by using deciliters. This gets even more ridiculous in the summertime when you have to decide on how many liters of fresh peas you want to buy from the market (and lets not even talk about buying plums). But back to baking!

When measuring with deciliters it really depends on how firmly you pack the flour and sugar because that might change the weight and will lead to a different result. I would recommend adding a bit more flour if you have the feeling the dough is not firm and springy enough before the rising time.

Heat the milk on the stove in a saucepan until it’s lukewarm and dissolve the yeast in it. Add the sugar, salt, cardamom and the egg and give it a little whisk. Slowly mix inaround 2/3 of the flour with a spoon or a hand mixer using the dough hooks. Knead in the melted butter and the rest of the flour. Transfer into a big bowl, cover with a towel and let it rise in a warm environment until the dough has nearly doubled. It really depends on the temperature and I’d say it would take around 1,5 hours in room temperature. You can also heat up your stove to 50°C, turn it off but leave the oven lamp on and let the dough rise in there for around 45 minutes.

When the dough has risen enough you can roll it into a log and cut it into 8 pieces (or more if you want smaller buns). Roll each piece into a bun and put on a tray lined with parchment paper. Brush some milk on top and decorate with pearl sugar. Let the buns rest another 20 minutes while you heat up the oven to 200°C.

Bake them for around 12-15 minutes until they are lightly golden. Let them cool down completely before you start filling the buns.

For the filling whip up the cream (add some vanilla and sugar if you like) and set aside. Now you can cut the buns in the middle and and put some raspberry jam or marzipan on the bottom halves. Or both like in my case!

Pipe the whipped cream on top of the jam/marzipan and carefully put the tops back. Now your buns are ready to be eaten. Enjoy!